The Unexpected
by Tora-no-Ankoku
Summary: A young girl trying to get by in the world only to get caught up with the one person she least expected.
1. Chapter 1

Ch1

A young girl walked down the streets of Midgar, back from the store; her yellowish-brown hair covering her eyes that were staring at the ground as she walked. She already knew what the city looked like, so there was no reason to look around…well there was one good reason. The girl bumped into a man and staggered backwards a little.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean …," she looked up and was cut off when the man turned around and revealed himself as Reno, a turk who worked for Shinra. She really didn't know what he did and really didn't care.

"Watch where you're goin' little girl," Reno said and stared at her.

For a while the two had a little staring contest, navy blue eyes meeting plain blue eyes. Lightning lit up the dim skies and thunder filled the silent void between the two; it started to rain lightly and the two continued to hold their places in the little contest. Finally Reno blinked and raised an eyebrow.

"What are you staring at," Reno asked getting slightly annoyed.

"Nothing worth while," she said and walked around him and continued her way home to her apartment, all the while hearing Reno shouting a string of 'what's' and other things that shouldn't be repeated. She was sure that he would have chased after her, but he was most likely being held back by his partner Rude.

The girl just shrugged her shoulders and continued walking down the sidewalk to her small apartment. She continued to stare down at her shoes, which were fading slightly from being worn too much. The girl sighed a little and looked up at her apartment and walked in the building and towards the elevators, but was stopped half way by the landlord.

"Well, well, Miss. Honda," He said in a nasally voice. "You got your rent?"

"I paid it yesterday, Mr. Kaze" the girl sighed and reached into her pocket for her apartment key and the receipt that was left in her pocket from the other day, just in case the old fart gave her any trouble.

"No you di…" she held up the receipt, cutting his sentence off, and let him read the paper real quick. He grunted in dissaprovement , showing he was done reading the paper, and she put it back in my pocket and walked towards the elevators and pushed the button to the eleventh floor and watched the elevator door close.

The small room of the elevator was filled with soft gentle corny music that had absolutely no beat to it what so ever, but what do you expect from elevator music. Miss. Honda looked up at the ceiling and heaved a sigh and stretched her neck a little. She shook her head to get rid of the dizzying feeling and walked out of the elevator once the doors were opened.

The hall was plain and simple; egg shell white walls, simple flower pictures in between every couple of doors. She walked to the end of the hall way and unlocked her apartment door and entered the dark room, shutting the door with her foot. She managed her way to the kitchen in the dark and set the groceries on what she thought was the counter and turned on the lights. Miss. Honda started to put the items in their right places.

Her apartment was a cozy little unit. It could fit about two people, but she lived alone; had a master bedroom with a bathroom and a guest bedroom with a bathroom across the hall. The living room was a decent size, even though it only had a twenty-seven inch television on a TV stand and a futon in it with her school bag tossed carelessly on top. The kitchen was a decent size too. It had all the things it needed: a fridge, stove, oven, and microwave.

Once the groceries were put away she walked in the living room and looked out the window at the falling rain. Looking down on the city below her, Miss. Honda crossed her arms and leaned on the window sill and rested her head on the glass. She liked the neighbor hood, the only problem being the people living in it. It wouldn't have a big effect on her, but the problem was that it was affecting the younger children.

The apartment building wasn't a bad little place to call home; it was the lousy bastard land lord that gave the apartment its bad reputation for renting to scumbags of the earth that would pay in drugs or stolen merchandise than money. People have mistaken Miss. Honda for being part of the 'scumbags' or a 'hoodlum', but then realize that she was the exact opposite. She never really cared about what people had thought about her, they were just opinions, no one really knew her.

Miss. Honda pushed herself away from the window and moved her position to the futon and leaned on the back of it and crossed her arms and legs, and gazed at the blank television screen. She listened to the soft pitter patter of the rain hitting against the window, not really in deep thought just gazing at the invisible spot on the screen.

The young girl sitting on the futon staring off into space is Miss. Pandora Honda. She may have the face of a fifteen year old naïve girl, she thought like a sixty year old woman who has had all the experience she needs to live through life; but actually she was eighteen. Her parents were dead; father died in a car accident when she was ten and mother drank her self to her death when she was thirteen. She was a senior at Washuna High school and was in mostly all honor classes and making decent grades. Washuna High was one of the most elite schools in Midgar, and everyone was trying to get into the school in hopes of getting into a good college and then get a good job. The only problem was that the elite schools had a tuition that you had to pay to when you got in and attend the school, so she got a job.

Pandora worked at a cute little café called _Penguin Play_, those kinds of cafés where the waitresses wear the light blue dress that reaches a little above the knee with a white apron. She liked working there; she got to know a lot of people, learned a few things that she would have to wait to learn in school a few weeks later, and got help on her homework when she got stuck. Working at the café helped her pay the two thousand five hundred dollar tuition per semester for going to Washuna High, with the pay plus tips. She managed to save the money every year, sometime having to get a loan from the bank.

Pandora blinked and looked down at her watch and noticed that it was running close to midnight and stood to her feet. She stretched her back a little and walked a round a bit to wake her sleepy legs and walked down the hall to her bed room. She changed into a pair of blue plaid pajama pants and a purple-blue tank top and walked back out to the kitchen and glanced through the cupboards. Pandora decided on eating cereal for dinner, and took out all the ingredients and utensils she needed: cornflakes, milk, bowl and a spoon. As she made her dinner/breakfast, she remembered what had happened earlier that day when she bumped into that turk and frowned. She didn't know why she was getting second thoughts about talking back to that impractical man. He always smelt like stale beer and something else that she didn't know but knew that it was probably something disgusting and immoral.

She shook her head to rid the thought of Reno and his extracurricular activities and walked back into the living room and sat down on the floor. Placing the cereal next to her, dragging her schoolbag to her other side; she began her pre-calculus homework.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

Catching a glimpse of lightning through her shut eyelids, Pandora slowly opened her eyes to face the bright light in the kitchen at the top of her head (which she lazily left on) and yawned slowly and sat up from the futon she had fallen asleep on and looked out the window. What she saw was another rainy day. Not really surprising to her, it seemed that it was raining everyday and if it wasn't it was threatening to. And at that moment rain began to speckle her windows and then it was drenched with water.

Pandora leaned over and scooped up the dirty cereal bowl from the other night and stood up and walked to the kitchen, stretching all the way there, and sighed contently. She had a day off from work, but the downside of it was that she had to go to school with a bunch of idiots who lived with their parents and waist their parents' money on sleeping in class and party at night. They were a bunch of lazy no good dumber than earth worms that only knows how to do one thing in life while the people at Pandora's school were taught how to do multiple things in life and yet they still can't fend for themselves without mommy and daddy there with their maid and butlers to help them out.

Pandora took a deep breath and slowly blew it out and went into a sort of 'zen' state of mind. She thought of a quiet little place where there was no one in site and sighed contently again. That was better.

She made her way to the bathroom and shut the door behind her and turned the shower on. Flipping her hair out of her face, Pandora looked up at the mirror and stared at the healing cut on the corner of her lower lip and smirked. She remembered very well how and where she had gotten that cut on her lip.

**_Flash Back_**

It started at school, like any other 'normal' day at lunch. Pandora was sitting against the school building, a crumbled up lunch sack laid next to her in a ball, reading her literature book to catch up on lost work when she was approached by a small group of people. One of the people, the leader probably, gently kicked the spin of the book to gain Pandora's attention.

"And to what, pray tell, do I owe this lovely visit," Pandora raised her eyes to the intruders and gave a smug grin. "Or should I say that this is a very grim moment part of our lives where there will be a confusing conversation for you all in the end with me laughing."

The females of the group gave each other a confused ditzy look, while the males had to talk amongst themselves about what Pandora had just said, making the sitting girl laugh.

"That was sure easy," Pandora smiled and stood up, gathering her belongings. "I wasn't even trying."

"You think you're so clever," one of the boys said with a sneer.

"No, you people make me that way." Pandora straightened out the back of her school skirt and walked past them.

"Hey now," a red headed girl said blocking her way. "Where are you going?"

"Well, I obviously can't have a battle of wits with any of you because all of you are unarmed, even put together you wouldn't be able to fill a bullet half way."

"That's not very nice," the blond girl piped up.

"Me saying that your voice reminds me of my landlord isn't nice. Want to know why? Because he's a man."

"You've got a smart mouth on you, Panny," one of the boys said, and laid a hand on her shoulder.

Pandora looked at the hand that had invaded her bubble and then looked up at the owner of the hand and raised an eyebrow. "Remove your abhorred hand from my shoulder you impudent idiot, and also it's not 'Panny'."

"Just because you think that you're smart means you're better than us," the male leader joined in.

"The only way of getting into Washuna High is to pass the entrance exam, which wasn't easy…Oh wait. You guys didn't take the entrance exam. Mommy and Daddy paid the very bribable principal to get you in."

The boy just smile and chuckled a bit and suddenly punched Pandora in the kisser. Literally. The sudden impact made Pandora drop her things and fall backwards. She raised a hand to her lip and brought down blood from her lip.

"Gee, real classy of you," Pandora said with hardly any emotion. "Hitting a defenseless girl. That's really something of you."

"You may want to watch you're smart mouth, Pandora Honda," he said leaning down towards her. "It could be hazardous to your health."

With that said and done the lunch bell rang for all the students to get back to class.

_**End Flash Back**_

Steam covered the bathroom mirror, snapping Pandora out of her distant daze. Out of habit, she turned on the cold water and waited for the steam to disappear a little and undressed herself and entered the shower.

Pandora's overall appearance was what she has considered normal. She had straight amber color hair that only reached the lower part of the shoulder; there were few split ends on close inspection. Her eyes were navy blue and always held a certain gleam, like she knew something that the world didn't know. She was a tad bit under the average height category; but she liked being short, it was rather humorous. Her almost child like face help accompany her height in some of her cruel jokes and harsh conversations.

Pandora was obviously not one of the popular girls in school. She had never dated any of the boys in school; she thought that they weren't in her intellectual level of thinking. If she was really interested, she would be interested in dating the President of the Shinra electric power company's son Rufus Shinra. She would enjoy to have a decent conversation with someone who had more than twenty words in their vocabulary, and she wouldn't mind having a debate with Rufus about the pros and cons of the corporation. But that was only if she was really interested; Pandora thought of him like as a pompous brat that always hid behind his father if he made a major mistake, and he was a bit too old for her.

When it came to most things Pandora was a pragmatist. She liked to keep things simple, that's why she could trick most of the kids at her school. She never really liked politics and hated it when someone tried to pull her into a conversation concerning politics. Pandora would have been neutral about Shinra electric power company, it was a really good idea to her at first, but when she noticed that the earth was slowly deteriorating and then she knew that it was pretty bad. The electric company also held a lot of secrets and Pandora didn't like it at all. She hated secrets.

Turning the water off, Pandora grabbed a towel from the rack next to the shower and wrapped it around her body and walked out of the bathroom and towards her bedroom and closed the door. She walked over to her closet and pulled out her uniform top from the top railing and her uniform skirt from the bottom railing and tossed it on the bed. Shaking the excess water from hair and drying her body from the warm shower and took out some under clothes and got dressed.

Pandora walked out of her bed room, while drying her hair off, towards the kitchen to make her self some breakfast. She looked up at the clock and noticed that it was getting close to seven thirty (about the time she left for school) and decided to make it a quick one, so she went into the cabinet and grabbed a package of Pop tarts, her backpack and walked out of her apartment and made her way to school, but had a little trouble on the way.


	3. Chapter 3

Ch. 3

Pandora was walking down the street, her backpack hitting the side and the back of their legs, just munching on her Pop tart and wondering if she had finished all of her homework for most of her classes. What she didn't know was that she was being followed by three guys who could be thugs for someone. The three would bob and weave every time Pandora would turn around.

'What's going on,' Pandora asked her self as she turned the corner. 'Why do I feel like some thing's not…'

She felt a sudden tug on her arm and turned around to be met with big thuggish hand covering her mouth and being pulled into an ally and tossed to the ground like a rag doll. Pandora sat up on the ground gently brushed off some of the dirt from her injured knee. The three thugs surrounded her, all of them holding a smug grin.

"Fee fie foe fum, what bean stalk did you three fall from," Pandora asked, giving her captors an irritated look.

"He said that you were a smart mouth," the man in front of her said, which she assumed was the leader.

Pandora stood up keeping her eyes on the leader and brushed off the dirt from her uniform and crossed her arms. "I'm guessing that this was already pre-planned, huh? Well then, is this a kidnapping, because I've got to tell you guys that my parents aren't around for the ransom."

"No, we're not kidnappers," the leader said with a calm smile. "We were hired to make sure that you can keep your pretty mouth from saying something it shouldn't."

"What do you mean by that?"

"We were told that you like to use complicated words when you talk to others and that you also like to confuse them."

"I don't use complicated words; I use high school and college words. They shouldn't be confused."

"I'm not here to talk. I'm just here to do my job."

"And what is your job?"

"This," the man to her left said simply and threw a punch at her. Pandora turned to face him just in time to catch the punch with her cheek. Luckily the wall was behind her and caught her but to only get a hard kick in her stomach and fell to her knees, clutching her stomach in pain. Then she got to know the ground pretty well as she was kicked down to it.

"Well," Pandora coughed. "This is a really nice way to treat a girl."

"At least you're not fighting back," the man to her right said with laugh. "Or else we would have to use weapons."

"Oh really," Pandora smirked. "I guess this isn't fair then." Pandora grabbed a metal pipe and swung at the man to her right, hitting him on the side of his head; she took a swing at the leader, but he grabbed her hand that was holding the pipe and back handed Pandora across the face.

Pandora's head smacked against the wall behind her pretty hard and fell to the ground. Going in and out of consciousness, she heard the three men laugh at her attempt of saving herself. The only sound that she could make was a soft moan, which caused more laughter.

"You know, she is kinda cute," one of the two lackeys said. "Don't you think so, Mac?"

"The school outfits makes it all the better," the other lackey said.

"What's the point of killing her know," the leader asked in a rhetorical question. "Why not have a little fun first?"

'This can't be happening,' Pandora thought and tried to stand but found it difficult, yet managed to make it to her feet and stagger a little way.

"Look," one said. "She's trying to get away. That's cute."

"Bring her back," the leader said.

She could hear their evil laughter and tried to run, but was grabbed by the arm from the closest goon to her and was tossed back to were she was. Pandora was caught by a lone trash bin, but she was hardly able to hold herself up because of her previous head injury and being tossed around wasn't helping her at all stay away from unconsciousness. Pandora tried to push her self off of the trash bin, but a body pushed her back down on top of it and pinned her arms down to the lid with one hand.

"P-please stop," Pandora murmured weakly.

But the man didn't stop. He slipped his hand down her waist and moved his hand to her inner thigh and slides his hand up her skirt. All the while she was trying to break from his grasp; his two buddies were snickering and keeping watch for other people. Pandora had to try to get away before her chance was lost. She looked back at the man and got an idea that, hopefully, would work. Lifting her leg, she kicked the man right on his penis making him cry out in pain and backed away from her holding his privates. His friends catching him before he hit the ground.

'Now's my chance,' Pandora slowly opened her eyes to her opening and tried to walk away as fast as she could shaking her head to rid the concussion.

"Get the girl," the leader growled and his lackeys chased after Pandora.

One of the guys pulled out a gun and aimed it at Pandora, but she was already against the wall slowly fading into oblivion and sliding to the ground. She laid her head on the wall and closed her eyes, not being able to keep them open, and felt her self finally being dragged into unconsciousness.

"What's seems to be going on here," a familiar womanizer voice asked.

Gunshots spooked Pandora from reaching the long sleep; forcing her eyes open, all she could see was red hair and her head slumped and she took slow deep breaths to keep the forming nausea from taking over her stomach. One of the goons grabbed her arm and tried to drag her up from the ground, but was dropped on the ground again and there was a crash like something hitting a trash bin.

There was sudden silence and then soft chuckling and murmuring of voices; one sounding quite pleased with him self, the other only made grunting sounds. Pandora tried to get up from the ground but ended up back on the ground. One set of foot steps walked past and the other stopped right in front of her. Pandora was too disoriented to move or think about what to do, she finally gave up.

"Reno, we got to get her some help," one of her saviors said.

"Who? Oh, that girl from yesterday," Reno said. The other being Rude.

"Lets take her to Lockhart." That was the last thing she ever heard before she finally fell into oblivion.


	4. Chapter 4

Ch 4

It seemed like Pandora was only out for a few minutes when she finally came to. She didn't open her eyes though; her eyes wouldn't open unless she wanted to force them, but she just didn't feel like it. She turned over on her right side, but the movement didn't agree with her.

"Ow," Pandora gasped, grabbing her side and rolling on her back. "Ow, ow, ow."

Instead of trying to sleep, like she had hoped, she ended up slowly sitting up and looked around and noticed that she wasn't in her room. She wasn't even in her apartment. Her gaze fell on two little kids who were peaking from behind the door. The two were just staring at her; one with interesting blue eyes and the other curious brown eyes.

"Uh…" was the only thing she managed to say when someone walked in the room, one of the kids following behind the other ran down a set of stairs.

"Well, well, sleeping beauty's up," none other than Reno said with a cocky smirk and a tall bald man, Rude, followed and stood in the doorway. "How's the patient doing?"

"I'm doing fi…," Pandora looked down and noticed that she was not in her uniform but a fleece/cotton blend button up pajama top and matching bottoms. "Where's my uniform?!"

"They had to be removed. They were just filthy."

"I hope they weren't removed by you."

Reno raised and eye brow and leaned in close to Pandora's face, making her lean back away from him. "What's wrong with the thought of…"

"Reno," Rude warned.

"Tifa, Reno's being gross," the kid who had followed Reno in the room shouted, making Reno back away from Pandora rather quickly. The kid was about ten or eleven years old, with somewhat shaggy brown hair, and he was the bearer of the interesting blue eyes.

'Thank you, kid,' Pandora thought with a smirk.

"I was not," Reno said still a little startled.

Rude moved to let a woman pass by, who Pandora guessed was Tifa, in the room and she glared at Reno. Her black hair reached a little past her shoulders and her eyes were a kind brown color, but at the moment they were scolding the red headed man.

"Reno, leave her alone," Tifa said and stood next to the bed and looked at Pandora. "Are you alright?"

"I think I'll be alright," Pandora said sliding her legs over the edge of the bed. "My side is just hurting a little bit that's all."

"You should stay in bed. You're not fully healed yet."

"Thanks, but I can't stay," as soon as Pandora got up, she ended up landing back on the bed feeling suddenly dizzy. Reno laughed at Pandora's accident, Tifa chuckled lightly and Rude sighed.

"She told you to stay in bed," Reno said in a taunting voice.

"Shut up, carrot top," Pandora growled, rubbing her head. 'That was a bad idea though.'

"Lay back down, Miss…," Tifa let the sentence trail when she realized that she didn't know the young girl's name.

"Pandora. No Miss, just Pandora," Pandora said brushing her hair out of her face that had flipped over the bandage on her head.

"Interesting name," Tifa said a little unsure. "I'm Tifa Lockhart, the 'carrot top' is Reno, and the tall quiet guy is Rude.

"Gotta last name," Reno asked.

"Not for you," Pandora replied.

"Is that how you treat the person who saved you from three big thugs?"

Pandora didn't answer right away. She just sat on the bed staring at the floor. "You saved me?"

"Yup. Me and Rude here. Now where's our thank you?"

"I was going to thank **you**, but just for that comment, I think I'll change my mind. Rude, thank you for saving me." Tifa gave a small chuckle at the site in front of her and crossed her arms. Rude just grunted.

"What kind of thankless person are you?"

"A very cynical one." Pandora decided to try to stand up again and successfully managed to movement. "Where am I?"

"7th Heaven," Tifa said with a small smile.

'Funny name,' Pandora thought.

A small little girl walked up the stairs and stood behind Tifa and grabbed onto the older woman's top. The little girl had dark brown hair, close to a black color; and was the older of the curious brown eyes; she looked to be about eight maybe nine years old. Pandora looked at the little girl and smiled.

"Hello there," Pandora said to the little girl. "What's your name?"

"Marlene," the little girl said and then pointed to the young boy. "He's Denzel."

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Aw how cute," Reno said in fake aw. "You found someone with the same intellectual level as you."

"Yeah, sorry we couldn't find a baby for you to talk to," Pandora gave him a fake smile.

Rude couldn't help but crack a smile, Tifa laughed a little, and the kids laughed loudly. Reno glared at the cynical girl in front of him and walked out of the room, Rude following behind. Pandora chuckled lightly.

"Um, Tifa," Pandora said.

"Yea, Pandora."

"Can I have my clothes back?"

"Oh, yea sure," Tifa said and walked to the dresser and pulled out the newly clean uniform and handed it to her and ushered the kids out of the room and shut the door behind her.


	5. Chapter 5

Ch 5

'Am I old enough to be in here,' Pandora asked her self as she was sitting at the bar waiting for Tifa to come back with her drink.

The bar was a little small than normal taverns, it was about the size of her living room and the kitchen combined. Don't get her wrong it was a cozy little place, but it just didn't look like she had imagined. She was expecting a bunch of sleazy old men sitting at the bar, smoke filling the air, and a bunch of overly underdressed waitresses.

"Here you go," Tifa said and placed the glass of water down in front of her.

"Thank you," Pandora said taking a sip of the cold liquid.

"What school do you go to?"

"What?"

"The uniform. It's for school, right?"

"Oh, yea. I go to Washuna High."

Tifa gave her an amazed look and was about to make a comment, but was a little late.

"Wow. Isn't that a school for smart kids," Reno asked. The two girls looked up to see the red head leaning against the doorway with Rude sitting in a chair a little bit away from him.

"Actually anybody can get in now. If they pay enough money of course."

"I thought you left," Tifa asked raising an eyebrow.

"Nope," Reno said with a smile.

"What kind of school is it," the older woman asked.

"A place where rich kids go and pratically get baby sat by the teachers," Pandora said taking a sip of water. "They don't care about the value of a dollar because once they leave high school mommy and daddy dearest pay for college and after that the little rich kids get jobs working for their parents."

"Wow," Tifa and Reno said in unison.

"A very good example is the Shinra electric power company."

"How's that," Tifa asked.

"Junior works for Daddy, so I'm guessing that Daddy paid for all of Junior's schooling and then hired him." The two adults just stared at her and then at each other and then back at her. "It's only an opinion."

"You've got to be a rich kid too," Reno said and pointed at her accusingly. "Or else you wouldn't be at that school."

"Yea," Tifa said, surprisingly agreeing with Reno. "I know the tuition is pretty high."

Pandora chuckled and smirked. "One: I took the actual test to get in; two: my father and mother don't pay for my tuition; and three: I know a value of a dollar, I have a job to pay for the tuition."

"Speaking of your parents maybe you should call them," Tifa said grabbing the phone.

"My parents aren't around," Pandora said, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

"Where are they?"

Pandora looked down at her hands. "They're on vacation."

Reno noticed that Pandora had a flash of sadness in her eyes when she said her answer. 'Is she lying ?' But he decided not to say anything.

"Speaking of phones, where's my bag," Pandora asked.

"I left it in my car when I brought you here," Reno said simply.

"Well, can I have it back? I need to get going." Pandora got up from her chair. "Thank you, Tifa, for your hospitality."

"You're welcome," Tifa said with a smile. "Bye now."

"Where ya going," Reno asked following Pandora out of the building. "I'll give you a ride."

"No thanks, I just need my bag," Pandora said.

"Alright," Reno said with a mischievous smile. "Rude, I'll meet you back at work."

Rude just nodded and walked in the direction of the Shinra company.

"Can I have my bag now," Pandora asked standing to what she thought was his car.

"Hmm. No," Reno said holding his smile.

"Why not? I need my bag for school."

"The school is too far for you to walk. And I'm trying to be nice."

Pandora just gave Reno a weird look. 'Him…a Turk…being nice? This doesn't make sense.' "Alright, fine. Don't cry about it."

Reno opened the passenger door for her and she got in and the door shut behind her. He got in the drivers seat and started the and off they went. Pandora picked up her bag that was on the floor of the front passenger seat and took out her cell phone and checked her messages and wasn't surprised that she didn't have any messages. Reno noticed the empty message box on her phone.

"Don't you have any friends," Reno asked.

Pandora sighed and brushed her hair out of her face. "Well, with my lovely personality it's kind of hard for me to make friends."

"No one you talk to at school?"

"A few acquaintances, no one I can call a close friend though. I'm usually all alone, off somewhere where no one can bother me so I can read."

"Don't you think that they would at least call you to see if you were okay after you didn't show up for school."

"They're not that considerate." Pandora looked up at the approaching school. "This is my stop."

Reno pulled over and Pandora got out and shut the door. The red head rolled down the passenger window and gave a cat-like grin and waved.

"Have fun at school," he said, mocking other mothers.

Pandora gave him a 'what the hell' look and gave an awkward wave. "Uh…thanks…I think…"

"Oh, yea before I forget," he said catching Pandora's attention. "Today's Saturday. You've been knocked out for two days." With that Reno drove off laughing.


	6. Author's Note

Dear Readers,

I apologies for the late posting, I should have posted a schedule for how I would be posting the story. The reason for not posting the past six days is because the main idea of the schedule that I have is that on weekends and holidays I will not be posting. Monday and Tuesday were holidays for me and Wednesday was a snow day.

The reason that I'm not posting on holidays is because at the moment I am working off a laptop that my school has handed out to its students. All my work is on this thing and I know I should email it to my self, but I can't do that in all of my classes. I can't get on it in all of my classes, so when ever I do I use it to continue writing the story. I also have other stories forming in my head and I want to get them in my laptop so that I won't forget the idea.

Now like I have said, the schedule for posting the chapters of the story is that I will post everyday (except on weekends and holidays). The reason that I will not be posting on weekends is because I need that time to get more of the story and the ideas out of my head.

I apologies again for the late posting and please continue enjoying the story.

Tora-no-Ankoku

P.S.

You guys know that you can review the story, right? I don't mind if its good or bad (if its bad please make it minimum, I do have feelings).


	7. Chapter 6

Ch 6

Pandora walked into the _Penguin Play _dinner and went straight into the back room and changed into her uniform. She was completely fuming with anger after what Reno had done. Pandora had never cussed in her life, even if something really bad had made her angry; but there's always a first time for everything. Luckily she had let out a chain of 'choice words' before coming in for work.

Taking in slow deep breaths, Pandora tried to calm herself down. This wasn't her fault and, technically, it wasn't Reno's fault either. The person at fault was the leader of group of kids who just loved to torment her. The one who had given her a bloody lip was now the one who hired a few hit men to try and kill her. Well, it couldn't get any worse.

She walked out from the back room and noticed a man sitting in her section; putting on a smile, she walked over to the costumer to do her job.

"Hello, welcome to _Penguin Play_ Dinner, how may I help you," Pandora said keeping her smile.

"Huh? Pandora," the man asked. 

Pandora finally got a real good look at the man and noticed that it was Rude, the nice one out of him and Reno. "Rude, right?" The man nodded. "I would ask you what you're doing here but this is a place for eating so that would be a stupid question."

Rude didn't smile, nor attempted to. He just read the menu and caught a few things he liked.

"So what would you like?"

"What's the special for today?"

"Today's specials are: chicken fried steak with mash potatoes and green beans; t-bone steak with a side of spaghetti and a salad; and tomato soup."

"I'll have the steak with spaghetti."

"How do you want your steak and what do you want as a dressing?"

"Medium and can I have French fries instead?"

"Alright then. Would you like more coffee or some soda?"

"Coke."

"Okay, let me get your drink and your food should be out in a few minutes."

"Aren't you going to ask for my order," she glared at her notepad when she recognized that annoying voice belonging to Reno.

Pandora took a deep breath and placed a smile back on her face. "And what would you like, sir?"

"I want the special."

"Which one, sir? The chicken fried steak, t-bone with spaghetti, or the soup?"

"The 'special' special."

"There is no 'special' special."

"Fine. I'd like a hamburger with fries and a soda."

'Thank God he didn't torture me too much.' "Alright, let me get you your drinks and like I said your food should be ready in a few minutes."

Pandora walked around towards the widow of the kitchen and placed the orders and went back to the Turk table with their drinks and walked to another table and got their orders. Everything was going like a normal work day, taking order and delivering meals. She delivered the Turks their meal and continued her shift.

Pandora thought that her day would be better and she thought that she could actually forgive Reno for leaving her in front of the school, but she got a little ahead of herself.

While she was walking to deliver a tray of drinks that was a few tables away from the Reno and Rude's table, but the drinks never made it to the table. Reno had to grab her butt, scaring the living daylights out of Pandora making her drop the tray of drinks on the floor. She gasped in pain, remembering her wounded side, and grabbed it.

"Miss. Honda, is everything alright," her boss asked walking up to her.

"Yes, Mr. Shigure, I'll get this cleaned up right away," Pandora said and once her boss was away from ear shot she glared at Reno who was laughing and was suddenly kicked by Rude.

"Oh dear, I seemed to have spilled some on you," Pandora obviously faked surprise. "Here let me help you."

Before Reno could refuse, Pandora slammed her hand on his shoulder and dug her nails in his shoulder. Reno flinched and looked up at the girl and saw that she was extremely pissed off and tried to get away from her, but was kind of being held by Pandora.

"Listen," Pandora growled while wiping off imaginary liquid off his shirt. "You don't like me, and I sure as hell don't like. If you make me lose this job, not only will I rip your arm off, I will shove it up your ass and then I will make sure that you will lose the only reason why the women love you; and guess what, it's not your dick. By the way, if you tell my boss what I've told you I will deny it and then I will hunt you down and kill you." She walked away to grab a mop.

The way she said it, scared Reno to no end. She said her threat in an eerily calm voice and quiet enough so that only he could hear. Reno looked at his friend for help, only to see that Rude was also scared. He must have heard her too. Pandora was a scary girl if you got on her bad side.

Pandora came back with a mop and bucket and mopped up the mess Reno caused, the two men sat up real straight and just stared at each other praying that she would go away soon. The girl flipped her hair out of her face and looked at the two Turks and smiled.

"Are you two done with your meals," Pandora asked, reminding them that she was still working.

"Yes," they blurted out at the same time.

Pandora gathered up the plates and walked away while dragging the mop and bucket and came back with a pitcher of soda and smiled down at the two. "Would you like more soda," she asked sweetly.

"No thanks we should be leaving. Right, Rude," Reno said getting up quickly.

"Yes," was all Rude said and went to the register to pay for both their meals while Reno ran away.

Pandora chuckle and picked up the extra dishes and walked into the kitchen humming to her self. 'The lesson today is don't piss off a _Penguin Play _waitress.'


	8. Chapter 7

Ch 7

Pandora slowly opened her apartment door and heaved a big sigh, locking the door behind her. The rest of the day at the dinner went fine, but she was given a warning by a police officer on her way home for jay-walking. Besides that incident she was fine.

"You have no beer," she heard a voice, hoping it wasn't who she thought it was.

Pandora slowly walked into her kitchen to have her hopes shot down. "How did you find where I lived," she asked the red head.

"You shouldn't leave your address lying around."

"How did you get in?"

"You're landlord let me in."

"Great, now I have to get a new lock. Can I ask why you're here?"

Reno shut the fridge door and walked up to her and leaned on the counter, looking at her. "I just wanted to apologies to you."

"You, the great Reno apologizing. I'm quite shocked."

"Yea, yea, now do you accept it or not?"

"I don't know. What are you apologizing for?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You left me in front of my school and then you molested me at my job, which I still have yet to decide to call it sexual harassment or liability to rid a hand."

"I don't understand."

Pandora huffed 'boys' and walked to the living room. Reno gave a groan of frustration and followed her. Pandora sat down on the futon and flipped her hair out of her face and stretched her neck out.

"Tell me what I did wrong, Pandora. And I'm not a boy!"

"Wow, you actually remembered my name. You are full of surprises."

"I hate you."

"I'm not surprised. Now get out."

Reno gave her a confused angry look and stormed out of her apartment, slamming the door shut. Pandora sighed and got up. This was it. The final straw. She locked the door again, and went to her fridge and took down a number and just stared at it.

'Should I make his life miserable,' Pandora contemplated. 'He did save me from that guy; but he left me a couple of mile away from my job, grabbed my ass at work, AND broke into my home.'

Pandora looked up at the fridge, thinking that the inanimate object had an answer. Maybe she shouldn't. But he's been such a but whole to her. This problem was starting to confuse her and wanted to solve the problem soon before a headache came on.

'Three strikes,' she decided. 'I'll take away the blame for leaving me at school just because I'm used to walking that far to get to work. So he has two strikes against him. If he messes up one more time, I'll…'

Her cell phone rang, breaking her out of her thought, and she picked it up to see that it was an unknown number. She answered it like she normally did to make sure she didn't know who it was.

"Hello," she asked.

"Hey there, babe," she heard the red heads voice say.

"What the hell? Are you stalking me?"

"I'm not stalking you."

"How did you get my number?"

"I looked in your cell phone."

'There goes the third strike.' "What do you want? If you want forgiveness, fine you got it."

"Nah, I don't care about that any more."

"Well, then what do you want?"

"I forgot to ask if you wanted to go to dinner."

"What?"

"Do you want to go out to dinner tonight?"

"Yea, I'd like to go out to dinner tonight."

"Really?"

"Yea."

"Good. I'll pick you up at around nine."

"Wait, you're going?"

"Well, yea."

"Well never mind then. I'm going to order in."

"What? That's not cool!"

Pandora chuckled and stretched her neck. "You never said that you were joining, so I changed my mind."

"Oh come on! It one meal, what harm could it do?"

"Alright fine, you can pick me up at nine."

"Great!"

"You're not spending the night, though."

"How about…"

"I'm not spending the night with you."

"Damn," he said quietly. "Fine. See you tonight." 

"I'll be waiting."

She hung up and dialed the number on the paper. After the second ring, someone picked up.

"Hello," Pandora said. "May I speak with Mr. Shinra, please? It concerns one of his Turks. His name is Reno."


	9. Chapter 8

Ch 8

Pandora put her hair up in a messy pony tail and walked into the bathroom and opened up the medicine cabinet and took out the tooth past and her tooth brush and closed it. She stared at the mirror and smirked at her reflection, remembering what she had done only just moments ago.

**Flash Back**

"Hello, President Shinra speaking," Pandora heard the president of the Shinra company say.

"Hello, Mr. President," Pandora said sweetly. "I'm calling in reference to one of your employees."

"Which employee are you referring to?"

"It's about one of your Turks."

"Let me guess, it's Reno."

Pandora chuckled. "Yes, sir, it is."

"What did he do now and how much is it going to cost me?"

'Oh, free money. Can't turn this down.' "Well, sir, I should start out that I'm very great full that he saved me from near death and possibly rape. But when I had woken up I wasn't aware what the day was today, so he took me to my school and dropped me off. When I was fully out of his car, he told me I was out for two day and today was Saturday and then drove off. But it doesn't really bother me any more."

"Okay," Shinra said, obviously bored and trying to figure out what the problem was.

"Anyway, enough defending him. He then thinks that he can come to my work and molest me, making me drop a tray of drinks I was carrying."

"I've never heard anyone complain about that."

"Sir, I'm eighteen years old. Even though I'm young, I do have some decency and I don't like it when my 'bubble' has been violated."

"Well, I will certainly talk with him about that."

"Could you also tell him that it's rude to break into an apartment and then invade their privacy."

Shinra was quiet for a moment. He couldn't tell if it was a joke or what. "Alright, miss, I'll talk to him about his rude behavior."

"Thank you so much, sir. I just didn't want him to use his authority to take advantage of other people."

"Aren't you such a nice person."

"Yea, but you may change your mind when I tell you my demand."

"His month paycheck?"

"You are such a mind reader."

"I just don't want a lawsuit on my hands."

"Thank you for your time, sir. I wish I could have spoken with you under different circumstances."

"Yea, okay."

After the information was given so she could receive Reno's pay check and they hung up.

**End Flash Back**

Pandora smiled and realized that she was already brushing her teeth and started laughing. It was just plain weird how she would go into a flash back and come out doing something that she didn't expect to do.

There was a knock on her door, surprising Pandora. 'Who could that be,' she asked herself, walking to the door and opened it to see an upset Reno. "Huh," she blurted out. 'I thought that call would have been a clue to leave me alone.'

"Hello," he said through gritted teeth. "Don't you look lovely?"

"What are you doing here?"

"For our date, remember? You also have obtained a month of my pay."

"Oh…so you heard about that?"

"My boss told me what you said."

"Really now, and you're here why?"

Reno chuckled a bit and walked into her apartment. "We have a date, remember?"

"Are you serious?"

"Yes, now get changed. We have to be at the restaurant in ten minutes."

Pandora was in total shock that she had went into her bedroom and changed into a simple black dress that reached a little below her knees and tie-up open toe heels. She didn't put on a lot of make up, but she had enough to see a light shade of navy blue eye shadow and a little maroon lipstick. She walked out and Reno stood up from the futon.

"Wow," he said in surprise. "You look nice."

"Thanks. If I had thought that my plan wouldn't have worked, I would have used that time to actually look a little better."

"Well if you want more time, then I could call the restaurant and tell them we will be late."

"Don't you mean a little late?"

"Yea, but I was thinking that we could play a little bit to work up an appetite." Reno was standing in front of Pandora and brushed a strand of hair that was in her eyes and pinched her cheek lightly.

Pandora smiled and brushed his hand away from her face. "I'd play with a vibrator before I'd play with you. Can we go eat now?"

Reno gave her a weird look and gestured his 'date' out of the apartment and to his car. Their destination was a nice little Italian restaurant that was famous for their homemade spaghetti and sauce with the choice of meatballs, sausage, mushrooms, and/or parmesan cheese. But that's a different topic.

Pandora was escorted back to her apartment by Reno. To her surprise, it was very nice. He didn't make any advances on her, he didn't even touch her. Pandora was very happy about that, but felt that it could go wrong at any moment.

"Well this was very nice," Pandora complimented with a smile. "Thank you for a nice evening, Reno."

"Not a problem," he replied with a smile of his own.

"You do realize that I am not inviting you in for coffee, right?"

"I don't like coffee much anyway. I'm going out for a real drink."

"Ah, yes. Waking up to go to work with a hang over. Nice."

"Fooled you. I have Sunday off. HA!"

"Go away now."

"What? No good night kiss?"

"Not for you."

"Why must you be mean to me?"

"Like I told you before 'you don't like me, and I sure as hell don't like you'."

"You make it sound like we're enemies."

"Yes. You can call us inseparable enemies."

Reno just gave his trade mark smirk. "Yea, well, that's just another person I have to dodge a bullet from."

"The best part is I don't have a gun. I'll just kill you with my wits."

The red headed Turk just shrugged and walked away, giving a small wave and disappeared in the night.


	10. Chapter 9

Ch 9

Monday came around, very slowly for Pandora. Reno kept calling her on Sunday complaining of a headache and that he wanted to be nursed, but Pandora kept hanging up on him. She got off the bus and walked through the entrance of her school just as the bell rang for first period to start. Heaving a sigh, she made her way to her economics class the only class that the teacher shot back comments at her making class more interesting for her.

The first thing she saw when she walked in to the classroom, like all the other days, was chaos. Paper was being flung back and forth from across the room, people doodling on the chalkboard, people making out in the darkest corner of the room, and other unmentionable things. Pandora made her way to her seat by the window overlooking the courtyard. She looked out the window, the sun was covered by clouds but it didn't look like it was going to rain.

The teacher slowly walked in the classroom and looked at his students. He pulled out a flask and took a large swig from it and set his brief case down on his desk and looked at the class again. The poor teacher knew that this was going to be a long day again.

This teacher is Mr. Damon Rolek, only being thirty years old he looked like he was about to turn fifty. He was starting to bald a little on the back of his head and he was starting to sound like Ben Stein from the Clear Eye Commercial. He used to love teaching, he had always made it fun for his students; but it all changed when he started working at Washuna High School. The kids were so disrespectful and unruly. Mr. Rolek was grateful when Miss. Honda would actually pay attention, the only bad thing about having her attention was that she mad the worst comments with out using any foul language.

"All right class," Mr. Rolek said somewhat silencing the class. "We are going on a field trip."

The whole class let out a loud roar of cheering and hooting. Pandora thought that they were a bunch of banshees. Most of them were horney banshees, but banshees none the less, and the teacher lost control of them. Miracles do happen though.

"SHUT UP YOU HETHANS!"

The class went silent and all the horse-play stopped abruptly. Pandora was a bit scared at her teacher's behavior, but was very pleased with the result of the action and leaned back in her chair and smiled.

"Now," the teacher said calmly straightening out his shirt. "Our field trip will take place at the Shinra electric power company."

Surprisingly the class was still silent, all but a few seconds, until one student raised his hand and actually waited for the teacher to call on him to speak.

"What's the point of going there?"

"We are going there to learn the economical back ground of the company."

Pandora couldn't hold in the comment that was boiling inside of her, so she raised her hand. The teacher saw this coming and sighed and sat down in his chair.

"Yes, Miss. Honda, please inspire us with your comments," the teacher said sarcastically. All the students chuckled and turned to look at Pandora.

"As usual, Mr. Rolek, you always push me into being the true person I really am," Pandora shot back with a sarcastic remark of her own, earning a weak shrug from the teacher. "Anyway, guess what we are going to learn there, boys and girls? We are going to learn how that company is destroying the planet."

"Thank you again, Miss. Honda, for your input."

"You are quit welcome, sir."

"But that information is irrelevant to what we are going to learn."

"Yes, but its still information."

The teacher only grunted at her and rubbed his head. "Anyway, we will be visiting the company next week on Tuesday. We will be meeting with the president and the vice president."

"Ah, the father son company. That always goes well when they get home."

"Yes, Miss. Honda, thank you for sharing you infinite wisdom with us again."

"There's more to come."

"We'll be looking forward to it."

The rest of the day went as normal; at lunch Pandora was harassed, in the classrooms the teachers ignored the students and all the problems forming in the class. If they don't see it then they don't have to fill out a detention slip and waist their precious after school time. Pandora reached her apartment and closed the door behind her and hit her head lightly on it and sighed.

"I get to meet the President of the Shinra company," Pandora said, just realizing what was going on.

"Really? That means you can visit me," Reno said walking out of her kitchen and took a drink out of a beer bottle.

"I really need to change my locks."

Reno smiled and pulled out a bag that had a new door lock in it. "I would have done it before you got home, but you didn't have a key."

"That's…nice of you?"

"Yes it is, even though you did take my paycheck."

"I didn't take your paycheck…not yet anyway. Why, do you want me to pay for the door lock? I can pay you five dollars right now."

"No, I was told to replace it by my boss."

"Were you also told to wait for me in side?"

"No. I took that upon my self to do that."

"And you say it like you're proud. How cute. I just may end up putting in an alarm now. Oh wait, I'm gunna build my own alarm system. Thank you for inspiring me."

"Ha, ha very funny." Reno opened the door and started his work on the door.

Pandora stretched her neck out a little and went into her room to change out of her school clothes and put on a nice black shirt and a dark pair of blue jeans. She walked out of the bed room and walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door to see a six pack of bottled beer. Pandora sighed and grabbed one of the bottles and walked back to Reno and watched him try to switch the locks.

"You're still not done yet," Pandora asked opening the bottle.

"It's harder than it looks," Reno said and saw the bottle of beer in her hands. "Aw, you got me a beer…"

"No, I got my self a beer." 

"But you're too young to drink and that's mine."

"No, it's mine now because you put it in **my** fridge which is in **my** apartment."

Reno just stared at her in aw as Pandora took a few swigs from the bottle and didn't cringe at the taste. Pandora only drank when she felt like it, which was hardly ever; but when she did one of her acquaintances would bring the alcohol over and there would be a small party and then every one would leave.

"I'm going out," Pandora said and put the bottle next to Reno and walked around him to get out the door. "If you're going to put alcohol in my home, get something better than that stuff."

"You're weird," Reno shouted at her.

Pandora just waved and took the elevator down and went to visit an important place .


	11. Chapter 10

Ch. 10

Pandora knelt down in front of her parents' graves and smiled happily. It had been only two months since she had last visited, but it had felt like a year to her. Her parents were very important to her and visiting them makes her happy. Happier than going to school and hanging around kids her age.

"This is where you hide out," Reno said with a smug grin. 

"I wasn't hiding," Pandora said simply. "I was visiting some very important people."

"Who?"

"My parents."

Reno looked down at the head stones. "Why aren't you crying?"

"Why would I cry," Pandora asked rising from her parent's grave.

"Well…they're…dead," Reno said gesturing towards the headstones.

Pandora chuckled. "'The past has happened, so why bother dwelling on it when we have our own past to make.' Someone told me that two years ago right."

**Flash Back two years ago**

Laying a carnation on each grave, Pandora let out a cough trying to hold her tears back; but it didn't work very well, so she gave in. Like she always did. She would always feel so weak when she went to their graves. It wasn't fair to her.

"Why," a sixteen year old Pandora sobbed. "What did I do wrong?"

She could remember what had happened the night her father died. Her father had left home to work the night shift at his job near the where house district. Everything went normal; he had given Pandora a kiss good night and a kiss goodbye and simply left. What he didn't know was at the same time a drunken man had stumbled out of the bar at the same time.

The two pulled out of the parking lot and drove off to their separate destinations. Unbeknownst to the drunk driver, his lights weren't on. When the two reached a four-way stop intersection, the drunk driver rammed his car into Pandora's father's stopped vehicle. 

Her father didn't die instantly, he was trapped inside his car unconscious. His face was full of cuts from the glass when the windshield when it busted when the other car hit him. His upper body was caught between the seat and the dashboard; his ribs were bruised, cracked, a few were broken, and one of the ribs had punctured his lung. Blood was slowly filling his lungs.

The drunk driver, as most drunken people are, didn't have any major injuries. Just a broken arm, and some cuts and bruises. The drunken man stumbled out of his car and looked at the scene in front of him. He pulled out his cell phone and called the police about what had happened, telling on him self basically, and the police said that they'd be there in a few minutes.

It had been half an hour before the police came and noticed Pandora's father, but it was already too late. He had drowned in is own blood. The drunken man was sent to jail for five years and was put on probation for three year. When Pandora's mother found out, she went ballistic and started to drink heavily. Her mother hardly went to work and Pandora ended up living with her grandparents for a little while; when Pandora went to visit her mother, she found her dead. Mother was dead for a few days before anyone found out. She died of alcohol poisoning.

Pandora looked up at both the head stones and wiped the tears from her eyes. She was only thirteen when her last hope of having a family died. Her grandparents where too old to take care of her, so she decided to live on her own. Three years have passed and the pain of her parent's deaths was still painful. It was just unfair.

A child's laughter snapped her out of her sadness, making Pandora look towards the little one. The child was magically sitting next to her when her voice sounded so far away. Pandora wiped her tears away and sat up and smiled down at the child. The child was a little girl who looked about two years old with silvery white hair and the brightest blue eyes any child could have.

"Hello there," Pandora said.

"Hi," the little child said with a smile. "I'm Javlynn. What's your name?"

"My name is Pandora. Where are your parents?"

"My mommy's over there." The little girl, Javlynn, said pointing over to a girl not much older than her running towards them.

"Javlynn," the girl said in a controlling voice. "I told you not to run off."

"Sorry, mommy. Look I made a new friend. Her name's Pandora."

The girl looked Pandora over. "I'm sorry if she bothered you."

"Oh no it's fine. Um, if you don't mind me asking, how old are you?"

Javlynn's mother smiled and gestured for Pandora to follow her to a near by park. "I'm eighteen; I had her when I was sixteen."

The two sat down and watched as Javlynn went up and down the slide. Sliding down the slide and run around to the stairs, climbed up them and slid back down to repeat the process again. She must have had her father's hair and her mother's eyes; her mother's hair was pure white and she could only guess that her eyes were blue like her child's, but wasn't sure because she was wearing dark sunglasses.

"So if you don't mind me asking, what are you doing in the middle of a grave yard by yourself," the mother asked.

"I was visiting my parent's gave." Pandora felt another wave of sadness and the older girl noticed it.

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to make you feel bad."

"Oh no, it's alright. I always get sad when I go there."

"How long has it been?"

"Six years for my dad and three years for my mom."

"How did they die?"

"Dad from a car crash; mom from drinking too much." Pandora wiped fresh tears away from her face. "I'm sorry, it's just that I miss them so bad. I don't know what to do anymore."

"The past has happened, so why bother dwelling on it when we have our own past to make."

"What does that mean?"

"It means move on. It's still alright to visit them, but don't visit their deaths. I must be going. Javlynn's missing her nap."

The mother stood up and called her daughter; Pandora stood up along with her and held out her hand.

"Thank you. I feel a lot better."

The mother just smiled and shook her hand. "Your welcome. I've been in a situation where that has helped me, but it didn't involve a death."

The mother and child waved goodbye and Pandora waved back and realized something. "Wait, I didn't catch your name."

"I'm just the little various things that's wrong with the Shinra corporation," she simply said and disappeared.

**End Flash Back**

"Miscellaneous," Pandora whispered.

"What," Reno asked, giving her a questioning look.

"I just realized what the name of the person who gave me the advice."

Pandora smiled and walked towards the exit with Reno following behind her, with a smile of his own. "Well I bet you got your looks from your mother."

"Actually I look like my father," Pandora laughed. "I got my wits from my mother. Did you change my locks yet?"

Reno was quiet for a few moments. "You may want to call someone to do it."


	12. Chapter 11

Ch. 11

"I'm glad that your lock works, Pandora," Reno said with a happy tone. "But can you open the door now?"

"Try getting in," Pandora challenged with a smirk.

"But the landlord doesn't have a key."

"That's not my problem."

"You're a bitch, you know that?"

"That's what I hear."

There was a chain of foul language and lots of banging around all the way down the hall. Pandora sighed and stretched her neck out a little and stared at the television. Why did she buy the stupid thing? She never used it unless someone came over but even then she was usually hosting a party or helping someone with their homework (in reality she was charging to do other people's homework).

Pandora suddenly felt something that she hadn't felt since the first time she saw Reno, and the feeling was regret. She couldn't figure out why, but she was feeling sorry for what she had done to him. Pandora knew that Reno deserved to have been locked out of her apartment but she felt bad for doing it and wanted to apologize, but didn't move from her sitting position in front of the useless television.

She knew she was starting to get a little soft but she couldn't figure out why. She couldn't have any feelings for the heartless Turk. He was a killer and wouldn't think twice about messing around with another girl. Pandora didn't know if she could ever like a person who killed as a job; Reno may seem like a care free person, but he does kill with out feeling remorse.

Pandora blinked in surprise of what she was thinking. How could she be thinking of 'liking' that incompetent man? He did break into her house TWICE and looked through her cell phone AND grabbed her at her job. She growled at the thought of Reno and stomped her foot on the ground and huffed. Her feelings were about to get her confused, but she reminded herself that she hated him.

'I need to go out for a walk,' she thought. 'This place is starting to get stuffy.'

Pandora stood up and nodded, agreeing with herself. A walk was a good idea. It would give her some time to clear her head and get some fresh air; also to let Reno's scent seep out of her apartment.

Grabbing a light jacket, she walked out of the apartment and out of the building. It was a nice night out too, a shame that the lovely night was usually ruined buy thugs mugging innocent people. Pandora let out a sigh and continued her walk through the city where the streets were dimly lit by the street lights and shop signs. The wind blew lightly making her shiver and wrapped her jacket around her body for more warmth.

She noticed a familiar bar and walked in. There was a large crowed of people, mostly men, and their attention was towards the stage; so like the rest of them, she looked up at the stage and saw a woman who was singing on stage. The woman was rather pretty with long platinum blond hair; her eyes were a sparkling green. The song started up and Pandora decided to take a seat at the bar, so that she wasn't blocking anyone's view.

"_Look here she comes now_," the woman sang and pointed straight at Pandora. A spot light lit up on her and poor Pandora, while she just stared at the people who had turned to stare at her._  
bow down and stare in wonder  
oh how we love you  
no flaws when you're pretending  
but now I know she _

never was and never will be  
you don't know how you've betrayed me  
and somehow you've got everybody fooled

without the mask where will you hide  
can't find yourself lost in your lie

I know the truth now  
I know who you are  
and I don't love you anymore

it never was and never will be  
you don't know how you've betrayed me  
and somehow you've got everybody fooled

it never was and never will be  
you're not real and you can't save me  
somehow now you're everybody's fool."

Pandora quickly walked to a seat up at the bar and sat down. She felt embarrassed about what had happened and bowed her head to hide her red face. A glass was set down in front of her and looked up.

"You look like you could use something cold to lessen your red face," Tifa said with a smile.

"Thanks," Pandora said and took a small sip of the drink, realizing that it was only soda, and then took a bigger drink.

"Hey, honey," she heard a woman's voice say and then was slapped on her back, almost making Pandora drown. "HA! The girl can't hold her liquor."

"Zinnia, lay off of her," Tifa laughed. "Besides she's too young to drink."

"Now that you say so…I think she's too young to be in here."

"No, she's eighteen."

"Really? Anyway, I'm sorry I put you on the spot a while ago. It was just on cue for the song."

"It's alright," Pandora said catching her breath. "I honestly thought I did something wrong."

"No, no, hon. Its part of a song I know."

"You have a lovely voice."

"Thanks," the woman stared at something and then smirked. "I've got to go. People to tease. Bye."

"Bye. I have to go too," Pandora said standing. "How much do I owe for the drink?"

"Don't worry about it," Tifa said. "I'll see you later."

"Bye, Tifa."

Pandora walked out of the bar and went back in the direction of her apartment. A loud crash was heard near her making her jump. There was shouting and more banging around and a sound like someone had fallen to the ground. Pandora snuck closer to the scene to listened in on what was going on.

"You f Turk," a man shouted. "You almost killed my brother."

"Hey, I've got to protect the people," a familiar voice said, but it sounded hoarse.

"Dumb ass, I'll kill you for the life you almost took from him." The man held the gun up, aiming it at the red headed Turk. "Now I've got you," he laughed and fired the gun.

"Reno," Pandora screamed and shoved Reno into the wall.

She didn't feel the any pain; all she felt was something going into her shoulder. It felt like everything suddenly went in slow motion. The only thing Pandora could do was stare at the space on the wall near Reno's head. She let go of the breath that she had been holding in and gasped, feeling the pain that had been waiting to break out.

Reno sat up and looked at Pandora worriedly. "Pandora, are you alright?"

'I-it's so painful,' she thought, not being able to form words. 'Well duh it's painful, I've just been shot.'

"Pandora!" The girl felt herself being pushed down to the ground as gun fire was heard.

She let out a cry of pain when she landed on her injured shoulder and felt a wave of nausea rise in her stomach and her head felt a little dizzy. The pain was like being stabbed with a hot fire prod and someone was spinning it in her shoulder. Oh, god was the pain was unbearable. Pandora was about ready to die right there. Another gun shot was heard, but it wasn't aimed at her or Reno. Soon after the shot, there was a thud and then silence.

"Reno," Pandora heard an unfamiliar voice, but she couldn't think of who it could be and didn't really care.

"Tsang, Elena, good to see you guys ," Reno greeted happily.

Pandora was getting very sleepy and leaned into Reno's chest and took shallow deep breaths. She couldn't stay awake anymore, her mind was forcing her to close her eyes and shut her self down. The pain was decreasing and Pandora began to shake; not only because she was cold, but it was also because she was afraid that she was going to die. She was going to die in the arms of someone she was slowly starting to like.

"Hey, Reno, is she alright," a female voice asked, noticing that Pandora was going out.

Reno looked down and shook her a little. "Pandora? Pandora!"


	13. Chapter 12

**Ch 12**

Pandora woke up to find her self in a hospital bed hooked up to an IV line and a heart monitor. She swung her legs off the side of the bed and jumped off. Turning around she noticed that her body didn't follow her and stood there staring down at her body.

"Oh my god I'm dead," Pandora shouted pointing at her body. She paced the room a little and looked at the heart monitor and saw that her heart was still pumping blood. "Oh good god, I'm not dead."

She looked around the room; it was like being in the Twilight Zone. Her body was on the bed, but she was standing in the middle of the room. This was confusing…wait. This must be one of those outer body experiences. Yeah, she was having an outer body experience; nothing bad can happen when you're having one of these…right?

"Is she gunna be alright, doc," she hear the familiar voice of a certain red head ask.

Pandora walked out of the room and looked towards the nurse's station to see Reno talking with the doctor. She walked closer to the two to listen more on what they were saying.

"She'll be fine," the doctor assured. "It was a good thing that the bullet didn't penetrate her bone, but the gash from the bullet was still pretty deep. We had to stitch in about twenty or more stitches, but its not life threatening."

"That's good," Reno sighed.

The doctor smiled and started to walk towards her and, before Pandora could move out of the way, he walked right through her. The young girl just stood there in complete and utter shock.

"That…was completely and…really rude," Pandora said outraged, then suddenly remembered that she wasn't inside her body and slapped her forehead.

"Hey, Reno," a female voice called and Pandora looked up to see a blond haired woman walk up to the red head and smiled. "Who was that girl you were 'hugging' all over?"

"She's just some school girl that I saved," Reno shrugged.

"I'm guessing she paid you back, huh?"

"Yea, she's also the one who took a month of my pay."

"What? She's only fifteen."

"No, she's eighteen."

"Huh?"

"Don't over think your little blond mind, Elena."

The blond woman, Elena, growled in anger and gave Reno a very dirty look that read 'if I had the chance I would kill you here and now', but a man with shoulder length black hair walked up and stood next to Elena.

"Reno, you need to get back to work," he said in a gruff voice.

"But, Tsang," Reno started.

"Sir wants you to get back to work, right now."

Reno sighed and started to walk towards the exit, but was stopped by the doctor he had talked to before.

"Sir, I need you to fill these forms out," the doctor said and handed the forms to Reno, but the papers were abducted by Tsang.

"Why would he need to fill these out," the leader of the Turks asked. "I thought that these had to be filled out by family members?"

'I did too,' Pandora thought.

"He is a family member."

"How," Elena asked.

"He's the young woman's fiancé."

"WHAT," Tseng, Elena, and Pandora shouted in unison and quickly looked at Reno for an explanation.

"Uh…Love at first sight," Reno said fake laughing and took the papers back and walked to Pandora's room to fill them out.

"You…you jerk!! What do you think…What are you thinking," Pandora shouted as the red head walked away.

"Poor child," she heard someone say behind her. She turned to see a man that was a little taller than Rude, Rude was a pretty big guy. The man had long straight silver hair and interesting blue-green eyes. "They just don't listen do they?"

"You can see me," Pandora asked in complete shock and amazement.

"Of course," he said with a smile and walked up to her. "You can say that I'm a memory in everyone's mind."

"But I don't know you."

He just chuckled and walked around the corner towards the corner, Pandora was surprised by is action and followed him. "You'll know me soon enough," he said and walked inside and open elevator.

"Who are you?"

"I'm …" it sounded like he had whispered his name, Pandora felt herself being pulled back into her body.

"Pandora! Pandora, wake up," she heard Reno's voice shouting along with a loud solitary squeal from the heart monitor.

"Nurse, set up the paddles," the doctor said.

"NO," Pandora screamed and sat up quickly. "I'm awake!"

"Oh thank god you're alright, sweetie," Reno said and hugged her tightly, forgetting that her shoulder was injured which made her gasp in pain and bite his shoulder. "Ouch, sorry, honey."

"Miss, do you know how lucky you are to wake up," the doctor said.

"I was sleeping," Pandora said.

"You weren't breathing."

"Yes I was. I was dreaming, more like I was having an outer body experience."

"Some people see their own body when they die…"

"I didn't die! The heart monitor was still working."

"Miss, please…"

"Honey, you gave me such a scare," Reno said petting her hair.

Pandora looked up at Reno and gave a fake smile. "I'm sorry, dear," she said as sweetly as she could. She looked down at her hands. "I seemed to have lost the engagement ring that you have given me."

"Don't worry about that. I'll get you a new one."

"You don't have too."

"Young love is so precious," the doctor said with a smile.

"Can you leave," Reno and Pandora said in unison.

The doctor obviously took it the wrong way and left with a very sick smile. Once the doctor was out of the room, Pandora punched Reno as hard as she could on his arm.

"Ow, what was that for?"

"For saying I'm your fiancé, you idiot."

"How did you know that?"

"Outer body experience, hello? I heard everything you said."

"Oh…"

"Yea…Hey, Reno, do you know anyone with long silver hair and greenish-blue eyes?"

Reno didn't answer right away, but his eyes said that he did know him.

"Why do you want to know," he asked.

"No reason."


	14. Author's Note 2

To my readers,

I apologize for not updating the story fast enough. I had been sick for a few days and I haven't had the time to finish the 13th chapter of the story. I'm working as fast as I can to update it.

As I am typing this I am thinking of more things to put in the chapter and typing them down. Hopefully I will have the chapter posted tomorrow. Please bear with me, I've been trying to get things organized and getting better.

Thank you for your nice comments about the story. It makes me feel happy when I read the reviews. I hope all of your questions will be answered as the story progresses.

Thank you very much,  
Tora-no-Ankoku


	15. Chapter 13

**Author Note: **Any song that is being sung in this story is not my own. I will post who sings it if I know who does sing it, if I don't this note is to let you all know that the songs do NOT belong to me. The song in Ch. 11 (I think) was sung by Evanescence.

**Ch 13**

There was silence between the two, Pandora and Reno, while they drove back to Pandora's home. How come it was always that they ended up at her apartment? Why couldn't they go 'bump' into each other somewhere else, and not her having to catch Reno in her apartment? Pandora mentally slapped herself back into reality. She had to stop thinking on that thought stream before it got anywhere it would only give her fake hopes.

"Reno, you didn't have to drive me home," Pandora said in her 'student talking to a teacher' voice; slightly pushy and calm and almost controlling of the situation. "I could have walked home."

Reno took a glance at her and smirked. "I could let you walk, but seeing as how you got shot last night…I don't think so."

"Think of it as payback for saving me the first time, now drop me off here." But Reno didn't stop. "You just missed my apartment building. Reno, what are you doing?"

"What," Reno asked. "Don't you trust me?"

"Not now, and if you keep it up I won't ever trust you. Now stop the car or slow down so I can jump out."

But Reno did the opposite. He didn't stop the car and he drove faster. Pandora leaned back in her seat as much as she could, her navy blue eyes wide in fear. Reno was crazy, plain and simple. And yet women loved and adored this man. What did they see in him? Reno was…crap a car! Pandora squeezed her eyes shut and held on the passenger door for dear life. What was he doing?

The relationship between Reno and Pandora was slowly growing. They were inseparable enemies, but a change was happening very slowly and this change, Pandora had come to realize, was that he was trying to kill her. It had changed from him breaking into Pandora's apartment to trying to kill her. Reno was going to kill her in a car crash.

'Wait…," Pandora thought. 'The car stopped.'

She slowly opened her eyes to look up at a very nice apartment building, better looking than her own. Reno opened her door and gestured her out of the car.

"What are we doing here," Pandora asked, getting out of the car.

"This is my apartment building," Reno smirked.

"Great, thanks for reminding me that I barely make enough money to live in my apartment AND go to school. You're such a good friend."

"'Inseparable enemy' is what I thought you said before."

"If memory serves me, you took it upon yourself to say that we were engaged. I still want an engagement ring by the way."

"You're not getting a ring and the only reason why you're here is because I don't want to see your face in the obituary."

"Aw, you care about an enemy. Do I amuse you that much?"

"Yes you do. Now come on, your stuff is already in my apartment."

"Since when?"

"Since you were in the hospital."

"I wasn't there long."

Reno just gave her a look that said 'shut up'. "Just come on."

Pandora sighed and followed Reno, while thinking of different ways to torture her new roommate.

The two walked into the building and went straight to the elevator and walked into the small space. Corny elevator music played in the tiny space, making Pandora and Reno sigh in unison.

"I really wish they would play something better," Pandora said.

"No kidding," Reno agreed. "They have to play this crap at my job. When is your field trip to the company anyway?"

"I don't know, I don't think that my teacher ever said a date. If he did, I didn't hear it."

"And I thought you were a good kid."

"Sorry to ruin your impressions."

The elevator reached Reno's floor and the two walked out of the small space and down the clean white hallway. It was quiet. Not like her apartment building where you could hear the cries of young kids crying for their mothers. Pandora kind of liked the silence.

"Here is your new home," Reno said opening the door.

"Temporarily," she said quietly and walked in his place, looking around.

Just as Pandora thought, and mostly everyone, there were clothes flung over furniture and take out boxes on the floor and the coffee tables. He was like some college students she knew.

"Sorry for the mess," he said and walked past her.

"No you're not," she said. "You need to leave, or hire a maid."

"Why do **I** need to leave?"

"Because I'm going to clean."

"Why?"

"Do I really need to answer that? You live here, and you don't know why? The readers know why."

"It's just a little mess."

"Don't argue with me. Just leave."

"Fine," Reno left and Pandora looked at her surroundings.

'Crap,' she thought and started her mission.

**Two hours later**

Reno walked through the door and was greeted by a sweet smell of fresh stew cooking. Before he could reach the kitchen, he noticed that his living room was cleaned. Raising an eyebrow, he quickly walked in his room to not see a mess and ran into the kitchen to see Pandora cooking.

"What the hell did you do," he asked.

"It's a new concept. It's called 'cleaning'," Pandora said with a sarcastic smile. "I'm pretty sure you've heard of it, but never did it."

"Where are all of my clothes?"

"Some are put away or in the washing machine. You do know what a washing machine is right?"

"Shut up."

Pandora stuck her tongue out at him and continued to stir the stew until the buzzer on the washer went off and she attended to it. Reno followed her and watched her put the wet clothes in the dryer. Pandora looked up at him and gestured 'what'.

"This is a dryer," she said, like she was talking to a child. "It dries the clothes."

Reno mimicked her and walked back in the kitchen. "Is the stew done?"

"In a few minutes. It just needs to set."

"Did you get all your things organized?"

"Yea."

"Good."

There was a somewhat awkward silence between the two. It was like one had seen the other nude on accident. Hopefully that will not happen in their near future.

"So, how long do I have to stay here," Pandora finally said.

"Just a little while. A month probably."

"Okay."

More awkward silence.

"I think the stew is done," Pandora murmured.

"Oh, uh, cool." Reno led the way into the kitchen and took out a bowl. "You gunna have any?"

"A little later. Still getting used to the surroundings."

"Well, I hope you enjoy your stay."

Pandora did say anything for a while, but then smirked. "Some enemy you are."

"You gotta keep your enemies close."


	16. Chapter 14

**Ch. 14**

It had been three weeks and Pandora already knew Reno's routine, and having a month off from school due to infestations of random critters invading the school. Reno would wake up at noon, drink coffee to try to get rid of a hang over (if he had one), take a shower, and get ready for work and leave. Several times she had taken it upon herself to 'help' Reno get to work on time.

Pandora had first knelt down next to his bed and watched him. She didn't say a word; she just sat there and stared at him. Eventually he stirred around a little bit and get comfortable and continued to sleep. Pandora crossed her arms and laid them on the bed and scooted a little closer to man and continued staring. When he finally opened is eyes, he got a rude awakening. Waking up to see someone's face up close in personal. He quickly jumped back and fell out of bed. All the while, Pandora laughed at him and walked away.

She would also continuously poke him while he slept, put his hand in warm water, dye his hair (temporarily of course), or she would do other terrible things that I'm sure that you could think of. It always helped him get to work at around eight am. But today was different.

When Pandora walked into Reno's room, she found that he was gone. She walked to the living room and found nothing; the kitchen, nothing; the laundry room, and still found nothing. He couldn't have gone into work on time, could he? Pandora smirked and sat down on the couch. She was finally breaking him.

Pandora was so proud of her self and felt absolutely giddy. She turned the television on and watched the news. Nothing new in the news. Another person killed, another place robbed, everything was the same old thing. Then the Shinra Company filled the screen.

"Hm. Interesting," Pandora murmured.

"And here we have a lovely view of the Shinra Electric Company," The news lady said with a proud smile. "Isn't it a lovely sight, Don?"

"It sure is," 'Don' said. "It has a grea…" Suddenly the building exploded and Pandora quickly sat up.

"RENO," she shouted and ran out of the apartment unit and out of the building.

Instead of waiting to take the elevator, Pandora flew down the stairs and jumped out the door and ran as fast as she could. All the while she was thinking about all the crummy things she had done to him for the past three weeks. All the bad things she had said. Pandora started to feel really bad and felt tears stinging in her eyes. Pandora just ran until she saw the smoke from the newly fallen building and started to run faster.

This couldn't be happening. She may not like Reno, but she didn't want him dead! Pandora would never…she just couldn't imagine Reno dead. Tears started falling from her eyes as she noticed the ambulance in front of the fallen building. The paramedics were crowding the truck making it hard for her, and the crowed of people was making it hard to get to the vehicle.

"Reno," Pandora murmured and tried to look for any indication that the red head was outside. She saw a flash of red go into the emergency vehicle. 'Oh, god.'

She saw a police officer talking with a witness and ran towards him. "Sir," she called. "Officer!"

The man looked up at her a little startled. "Yes, ma'am, what's the matter?"

"What's the hospital that ambulance is going to?"

"Casio Medical Hospital. Why?"

"My fiancé is in that ambulance and I need to be with him."

"I'll take you there."

"Thank you so much," Pandora said and followed the officer to his car and the two sped off to the hospital.

When they got there, Pandora jumped out of the car and ran into the emergency room, frantically searching for the flash of red hair. Doctors and nurses filled the room taking care of the other wounded people from the collapse. She ran up to the nurses station, after a few minutes she caught the attention of one of the busy nurses.

"What do you want," the nurse asked rudely.

"Do you have Reno from the Shinra Corporation collapse," Pandora asked.

"He has to be with his boss. Down the hall and to the right, he might be waiting by OR."

"Thank you," Pandora followed the nurse's directions and saw no one there.

The girl sighed in distress and looked around quickly, but couldn't find him. She sat down in a near by chair and stared at the floor. Her amber hair covered her face as she tried to think of something logical to make her feel better…which wasn't working too well.

'He could be in surgery,' she thought. 'Something could go wrong in surgery. Maybe he isn't here yet. What if he's dead?'

"Pandora," she quickly looked up and saw the blond girl that Reno worked with, Elena.

"You, uh…I don't your name, but that doesn't matter," Pandora said quickly. "Where's Reno?"

"He's getting treated for his injuries. He's in room 38B."

"Thank you!"

"My name is Elena," the blond called as Pandora ran off to try to find the man she lived with.

Pandora stopped in front of the room Reno was supposedly to be in and stood there not really knowing if he was really there or if it was another wild goose chase. She took a deep breath and was about to open the door when someone else opened it.

"Pandora," Reno asked surprised. He had a bandage on his cheek and his arm in a sling, and he wasn't dead.

"Reno," she gasped and jumped in his arm, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulled away remembering his hurt arm and then hit him. "Idiot!"

"Ouch," Reno shouted rubbing his arm. "What the hell was that for?"

"For actually getting to work on time AND getting yourself hurt."

"And that's a good reason to hit me?"

"Yes, what will I do with out my 'enemy' around?"

"Do I amuse you that much?"

"Yes you do."

"That's nice to know. Now, why are you in your pajamas?"

Pandora looked down and noticed that in fact she was in her pajamas. She looked back up at Reno and slapped him. "That was for NOT looking me in the face."

Reno just laughed at her and gently pushed her out of the way. "You are a weird child, ya know that?"

"Where are you going?"

"I need to check up on my boss. Hey, now you can't go on that field trip your teacher was planning now."

"Oh, yea. I forgot about that."

"You wanna meet him?"

"Who?"

"My boss. Mr. Rufus Shinra."


	17. Chapter 15

**Ch. 15**

Reno walked in the room with great confidence and was followed by a very unconfident Pandora. She stuck close behind Reno and never left his side for fear that she would get kicked out for being there when she wasn't supposed to be. Pandora was going to meet the president of the newly fallen company that had slowly destroyed the planet. Did that mean that the planet would be back to normal? Or was the planet permanently damaged?

"Hello, sir," Reno greeted.

"Reno," Rufus said. "How are your injuries?"

"Their minor injuries, sir, I'll be fine."

Rufus just nodded. Pandora looked our from behind Reno and noticed the extent on the president's injuries. Shinra had a head wound, an injured eye, had a lot of scratches and bruises but that was about all that she could tell.

"Well, hello there," Rufus said noticing Pandora peeking behind Reno. "Who are you?"

Reno looked behind himself and pulled Pandora out from hiding with his good arm and smiled. "This is Pandora," he said. "The girl who had called you to 'complain' about me."

"Oh, I remember now."

"Hello, sir," Pandora said with a small nod of her head. "How are you doing?" 'That was a stupid question.'

"I'm doing fine, thank you," the president said. "How are you?"

"Good."

There was a small silence, and during that silence Pandora had a lot of questions to ask him but couldn't bring herself to ask any of the questions. Sometimes Pandora has a problem with talking to people in a crowd, the kids at school were easy to talk to because they were complete idiots but this was the president of a major company. She just kind of clamed up.

"So, Reno," Rufus said breaking the silence. "Is this the same girl that you said was your fiancé?"

"Uh, y-yes, sir, she is," Reno said with an uneasy laugh, Pandora bowed her head to try her face that had turned into a tomato.

"Well, Miss. Pandora, how did the two of you meet," Rufus asked in a teasing way.

Reno raised an eye brow in confusion of seeing his boss acting like the way he was. Pandora couldn't look up and couldn't remember how she had met Reno. All she could manage to do was shrug her shoulders.

"What's the matter, miss? Can't you talk?"

Pandora nodded her head.

"So what's the matter," he continued to tease.

"I don't know," she murmured.

Poor Reno was still very confused about what his boss was doing, and for some reason he didn't like it that his boss was teasing the poor frightened girl. He stepped in front of her, trying to make it look like he was shifting his weight to his other foot.

"Uh, sir," Reno said clearing his throat. "Do you remember that school that was supposed to take a field trip to the company?"

"Oh, yes Washuna High School," the president said with a smirk. "What about it?"

"Pandora attends there."

"Really, now? That's a pretty elite school. Not to be rude, but how did you get in?"

"I passed the entrance exam," Pandora said.

"Wow, you must be pretty intelligent? So, do you have any questions for me?"

"How can you be calm and act normal, but have a near death experience," she accidentally blurted out and quickly covered her mouth.

"All I can say is thank god for morphine."

"That's how addictions start."

"I know. So any questions about the company?"

"What exactly was it supposed to do?"

"It was supposed to take the life stream and use it as a light source."

"Did you think it was going to regenerate itself?"

"I think I must remind you that this was my father's project that I had inherited when he had died."

"I apologize for your loss, but my question stands," Pandora said with a little more confidence.

"I'm not really sure, but I think that my father thought that it would have regenerated itself. I think he thought that with the loss of energy, the life stream would replace itself."

"Do you think that the planet will ever be the same again?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, since the company has been 'demolished', do you think that the planet will become full of life like it had before the company had started?"

"I don't really know."

"I think that's all my questions."

"Can I ask you one?"

"Not to be sarcastic, but that was a question."

"Why are you in your pajamas?"

Pandora was silent for a moment. "Well, I woke up and turned on the television and freaked out when the company went down and ran to debris to try and find…find Reno to see if he was okay. I had completely forgotten that I was in my pajamas."

"Well you two really do act like a couple about to get married."

The comment made Pandora blush a little and Reno straighten his shirt out a little.

"We aren't really engaged," Reno said, clearing his throat.

"Oh, what a shame."

After a while Reno was allowed the rest of the day off and he and Pandora walked back to his apartment. Reno had given her his jacket so that people would quit staring at her in her pajamas.

"That was an interesting encounter," Reno said.

"Very," Pandora replied. "What do you want for lunch?"

"I don't know. I wasn't thinking about it much."

"I can make you some miso soup."

"That sounds good."


	18. Chapter 16

**Ch. 16**

It had been a week since Reno's arm was healed and he was feeling a little better, almost back to his normal self. The only thing that was keeping him self from getting back to normal was that the arm that had been injured was continuously bothering him. The pain medication that was prescribed to him wasn't working very well anymore, not like it had when he first took them.

Pandora was finishing packing her things, when Reno had came home from another days work. This was her last night living with Reno and she had saved up her money to go back to her old apartment and she would be getting back to school the day after the next day. Pandora looked up after she stacked another box on top of the other boxes she had already stacked in the room she had occupied.

"Honey, I'm home," Reno said in his cute, but annoying way.

"That's nice," Pandora said and walked out to where Reno was. "What's up?"

"Not much really," Reno sat down on the couch. "But my arm is bothering me."

"I thought you were taking pain meds," she sat down on the arm of the couch.

"I stopped taking them…"

"That's smart."

"My prescription ran out."

"That's a different story."

"Anyway, my arm doesn't hurt it just feels uncomfortable. There's a lot of pressure in my arm."

"You're just tense," Pandora got up and walked behind him and started to rub his shoulders. "Is your job really that stressful? I mean you get to kill people, I would think that it's a stress reliever."

Reno just laughed and bowed his head. "No, even killing someone is stressful. They don't hold still."

Pandora grunted in disapproval and started rubbing the arm that was bothering him. "That's no fun. Why can't they be good victims and hold still when their about to be murdered?"

Reno shrugged and tilted his head to the side. Pandora raised his arm and laid it on the top of the couch, but it couldn't raise that high without it being more uncomfortable for him so she jumped over the couch and sat next to him and continued to rub his sore arm. She started at where the arm met the shoulder.

"So what's for dinner," Reno asked.

"You really think I would know," Pandora asked raising an eyebrow.

"Hey if you weren't here I would be ordering take out."

"Oh, so you're using me for my ability to cooking ability. I feel loved."

Reno just laughed some more and teased her about how girls were only good at cooking and cleaning, and Pandora would pinch him to try to quiet him. She started to rub Reno's upper arm. It really did feel tense.

"Any way, what do you want to eat," Pandora asked.

"Why do you keep asking what **I **want to eat," Reno questioned looking at Pandora from the corner of his eye.

"You like different foods than I do."

"You're a teenager, it shouldn't matter what kind of foods you eat."

"I'm a girl not a horse."

"I mean that you're young and your metabolism is high."

"Uh huh."

"Okay, what foods do you like?"

"I like spicy foods."

"Really? That's surprising."

"Oh, because I'm a girl I shouldn't like spicy foods."

Reno rolled his eyes and looked down at the floor. Pandora shook her head and rubbed his elbow.

There was silence between the two while Pandora started rubbing his forearm. After a while she got to his wrist and Reno peeked over at her as she started to rub his hand. Pandora noticed it and tilted her head to the side.

"What," she asked.

"Nothing," he looked away.

Pandora shrugged and let his hand go and looked up at him. "Done," she said and got up and walked away.

"Where are you going?"

"To get the phone book, I'm hungry."

"I want Chinese."

"I want Mongolian."

"Chinese."

"Mongolian."

The two stared each other down until they both had a light bulb flash in their minds. "Both," the two said in unison and were quiet for a while. Pandora chuckled and went to get the phone book and started to order her food.

"Reno, what do you want," Pandora asked while she dialed the Chinese restaurant's number.

"I don't care," Reno said and followed her voice in the kitchen where Pandora was facing the stove talking to a person on the other line. He slinked his way close behind her quietly so that she wouldn't notice him and leaned down next to her ear to try to scare her but…

"Hey, Reno, do you want…" as Pandora was turning to ask him a question, she accidentally brushed her lips against his scaring her and she dropped the phone.

The two didn't say anything for a while, not knowing what to say to the other. They just stared at each other as they tried to gather their thoughts together. What the heck was going on?

'That wasn't bad though,' Pandora thought. 'But it was an accident. Not a real kiss.' "This never leaves this apartment, understand," Pandora declared.

"I agree," Reno said.

"Uh…Hello," the phone asked. "Is anyone there?"


	19. Chapter 17

**Ch. 17**

Pandora sighed and cleaned up another child disaster table at her lovely job at the _Penguin Play_. She first cleaned up the loose articles of trash and dishes, and took them to the back and came back with two rags (a wet one and a dry one) and started scrubbing the table with the wet.

She flipped her hair out of her face and was about to dry the table when she had felt something poke the small of her back. Expecting it to be Reno, Pandora slowly turned around but found a giant penguin in the place where the red headed Turk should have been. She didn't know what to do; there was a giant penguin in front of her.

'I know I'm not an alcoholic; those are pink elephants anyway,' Pandora thought as she watched the penguin dance around. 'It must be a dream. I'm in a very strange dream involving a penguin.'

As if it could read her mind, the penguin suddenly stopped dancing and grabbed her boob. Of course Pandora got quite upset about it and showed just how much she appreciated being molested at her job; she punched the giant creature with all her might. Humorously for us (but sadly for her), the penguin's head spun around twice and then its face was facing away from her.

"Oh my god," Pandora screamed and jumped on the table in order to get away from the sight. Luckily for her the restaurant was closed and there was no one around to see her in the state she was.

The penguin seemed unaffected by what Pandora had done and grabbed its head and pulled it off revealing that it wasn't a real animal, just a costume. The wearer of the costume was, sadly, her boss's son Ray. Ray was a big pervert; thank god he didn't attend her school.

"RAY," Pandora shouted and glared at the intruder of her bubble.

"You can't kill me," he said quickly and ran away laughing.

"Quit lying to yourself," Pandora chased after him, picking up a knife on the way.

Ray noticed her grab the knife and started to run faster. "You are gunna kill me aren't you?"

"If you would hold still it would be easier!"

"What is going on," Mr. Shigure asked, his son quickly hiding behind him and Pandora stopped in front of him.

"Tell your son to quite invading my 'bubble' or I'm going to chop his hands off with a meat cleaver.

"Ray, do what she says," Mr. Shigure sighed.

"Yes, daddy," Ray said and ran off to hide in his father's office.

"Why is he wearing a penguin suit," Pandora asked.

"He's going to stand in front of the restaurant and try to attract more customers," boss-man said.

"Are you sure you want your son in a costume where it could over heat his brain killing more of his brain cells?"

"Between you and me, what brain cells."

"That's mean. You're his father."

"Yea I know, but he gets his 'lack of brain cells' from his mother."

"Yes, blame the female genetics in front of female who can kick you in the balls and pray that she won't get fired for doing it."

"Gee, it's nice to know how my employee feels about me."

"I only give honesty."

"No wonder you made so many costumers cry."

Pandora just shrugged and walked away, tossing the knife on the counter. "I'm going home," she called and went in the back and changed into her streets clothes.

As she was walking towards the door to leave, her boss stopped her to ask her a favor.

"You want me to do what," Pandora asked in slight disbelief.

"I want you to help him pass the 12th grade so he can graduate," her boss repeated himself.

"Well, what are his grades?"

"Bad."

"How bad?"

"So bad that even the disruptive students are laughing at him."

"That's pretty bad."

"So will you help him?"

"I can't make any promises, but I'll try and see what I can do."

"Thank you so much, Pandora. You can come over to our house or do you want him to go to your home?"

"What ever is convenient for you, sir?"

"Alright, I'll have him go to your house after school."

"Okay. Later."

"Bye."

Pandora walked out of the building and made her way home when she realized what she had just agreed to. She was going to help her boss's perverted son in her apartment where it would be just the two of them.

'Crap,' she thought and rounded the corner and walked in her building and in her home to think about what she had done.

**The Next Day**

Pandora walked to her apartment building humming a soft tune to herself. Her day had gone great; the kids that liked to pick on her left her alone, she had passed all of her classes, and she had a good feeling that she was going to pass her entrance exam for college. This day couldn't go wrong.

As she rounded the corner she noticed a familiar person standing in front of her building. It wasn't Reno, the person didn't have red hair; it wasn't Rude, the person was too small (in height and weight); who was it?

The person turned towards her and smiled. "Hey, Pandora, I hope I'm not too early," he said.

'Oh no,' she thought. 'I have to help the perverted boy with his school work.'

"Sorry, Ray" Pandora said. "I almost forgot."

"Should I come back later?"

"No its fine, but there are a few rules that you HAVE to follow in order to stay in my apartment."

"Okay, what are they?"

"Rule one: keep your hands to yourself; rule two: I'm not doing your homework for you, if you want me too you have to pay for it; rule three: keep your hands to yourself."

"You said that already."

"I like my 'bubble' very clean."


	20. Chapter 18

**Ch. 18**

"GET OUT," Pandora's voice could be heard out side of the building. "Get out you hopeless pervert!"

Her front door slammed opened and Ray stumbled out of the apartment and ran towards the elevator with Pandora following behind, his back pack at hand and suddenly gone with a swift throw to Ray's head. She knew that she would have to pay for this the next time she went into work, but that didn't matter. He had invaded her 'bubble'!

"What did I do," Ray asked his back against the elevator door.

"You invaded my 'bubble'," Pandora shouted 'bubble'. Eventually her neighbors walked out of their homes to watch what was going on with the two teenagers.

"How?"

"You grabbed my thigh that was a little too close for my comfort."

"I-I'm sorry. I couldn't resist. I…"

He was disrupted by the elevator doors opening and him falling in with a familiar bald headed Turk in there.

"What's going on," Rude asked with a raised eyebrow.

'Hm. I wonder,' Pandora thought and smirked to her self. "He grabbed me."

"What?"

"He grabbed my thigh and that made me very uncomfortable."

Ray looked between the two and his gaze went to Rude and gulped a big lump of fear that was storing in his throat. Rude looked down at the boy, his face emotionless.

"Want me to do something about it," he asked popping his knuckles.

"Nah, leave him be. Let him change his boxers," Pandora chuckled. "What do you need?"

Rude stepped over Ray and let him leave quietly and followed Pandora into her apartment. "Have you seen Reno lately," he asked.

"Hasn't he been at work?" She offered the big man a drink which her politely turned down.

"Not that I know of."

"Is he at home?"

"If he is, he's not answering."

"Well, I still have a key to his apartment which I've been meaning to return. I can see if he really is home if you want."

"I can drop you off," Rude offered. "I have to get to work."

"Okay, thanks."

The two left and got into Rude's car and left to search for Reno and try and return his key without wondering if someone would try to break into his apartment and steal his stuff. The ride there was quiet because they were looking around to see in Reno was walking around aimlessly, but it was mostly because they didn't know what to say to each other.

They reached Reno's building and Pandora got out of the car and quickly made her way to the unit Reno lived in and saw an eviction notice nailed to the door, which made Pandora worry a little and knock on the door.

"Reno," Pandora called. "Reno, are you in there?"

She didn't receive an answer.

"Reno, its Pandora. I still have a key to your apartment and I'm coming in, so don't shoot me or something…if you're in there."

Pandora unlocked the door and walked in the apartment unit and looked around. It was actually lived in. In fact, it looked like the first time she had walked in the apartment. Pandora had the sudden urge to clean, so she walked into his bedroom to see if it was in the same condition. To no surprise it was in the same condition but worse; clothes were flung everywhere and the bed looked like a bomb went off in it, but her focus was on the air duct that had a wad of clothes stuck in it and she was trying to figure out how it had gotten up there. She slowly backed away from the room and prayed that the kitchen was in better shape than the other two rooms. That would have been nice but it sadly wasn't clean like she had hoped. Dishes were stacked all over the counters, take out boxes were everywhere and Pandora wasn't happy.

"Clean up time," Pandora sighed and rolled her sleeves up.

**3 Hours Later**

Pandora brushed her bangs out of her face and let out a breath of air. It had taken longer than she had expected, but there was a lot of trash and dirty laundry in the apartment.

A buzz sounded and she went to the finished laundry and took them out and folded them and placed them in the proper places when she heard a funny noise from the living room.

Pandora followed the sound until she reached the living room and realized that it was the door trying to be unlocked. Butterflies went into her stomach as the door was slowly opened and she could hear a male voice muttering some foul language to him self.


	21. Chapter 19

**Ch. 19**

"What are you doing here," a man, that was definitely NOT Reno, asked obviously not happy.

"What are **you** doing here," Pandora asked.

"I'm the landlord, who are you?"

"I'm a friend of Reno's."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know."

"How did you get in?"

"I had a key."

"What are you doing here?"

"What is this, twenty questions," Pandora was getting fed up with all the questions. Who wouldn't?

"Where's my money?"

"I…"

"Got it," Reno's said in a sing-song voice. "Anyone miss me?"

"Where were you," Pandora and the landlord asked in unison.

"Sorry, I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"I will have to kill you."

Pandora kept her mouth shut but the landlord went on about his money. Man, was he worst than her landlord.

"Where's my money?"

"Why am I being evicted?"

"Why did you leave this place in a mess?"

"Are you blind? This place is clean."

"What's with the twenty questions," Pandora asked.

"I find amusement in it," Reno gave a smirk.

"I just want my money," Mr. Landlord guy mumbled.

"Greedy bastard," Reno sighed and threw the money at him and walked towards Pandora and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "What's for dinner?"

By this time the landlord had ran off, while Pandora tried to think of what Reno was getting after. There was absolutely no food in his pantry and cupboards. Reno picked this up and laughed.

"Come on, babe," Reno lead Pandora towards the door. "Let's go out to eat. How about Mongolian food?"

"Huh?"

"You like spicy food right? Well I want spicy food, so let's get spicy food."

"Name a Mongolian food."

"How 'bout I tell you where I was?"

Reno opened the car door for Pandora and she got in and waited for Reno to get in and tell her where she had gone.

"Did you know that Rude came to my apartment looking for you," Pandora started.

"Really? I didn't know he cared so much," Reno smirked.

"Where were you?"

"I was just aimlessly driving around."

"Why?"

"I needed to get my head straight and figure out what was going on."

"What was going on?"

"Personal things."

Pandora never asked what the personal thing was; it would be rude of her if she did ask. She decided that it was best if the topic be changed.

"I know you want to know what the thing is," Reno chuckled. Pandora was about to say something but was stopped when the red head raised his hand. "It's alright; I'll tell you what it is. To be honest, it's kind of hard to tell the person that you were thinking about them."

"Huh?"

Reno pulled up to the restaurant and got out of his car and opened Pandora's door and lead her into the building and found them a quiet spot in the corner of the room where they could talk more. (A/N: think the 'Godfather' if you will; if you don't know what the 'Godfather' is, go rent the movie it's awesome.)

"What were you talking about, Reno?"

Reno took a deep breath and chuckled. "Man, this is like being in High School."

"I am in High School."

"That's beside the point. Anyway, I'm going to be straight with you…"

"You mean you're not gay?"

"Hey I may be pretty, but I'm not gay."

"This would be a good a perfect place to have the song 'I'm too sexy' play."

"Can we get back to the point?"

"Yes, I'm sorry I interrupted you."

"I'm going to be **honest** with you, I like you."

Pandora looked at him, not really getting what he was saying.

"I like you more than an inseparable enemy."

Pandora still didn't get it.

"I think I'm in love with you," he said slowly, Pandora's eyes widened and was about to say something when he covered her mouth. "I knew that would get you to know what I was saying."

"Are you serious?"

"Yea, you're kind of slow for a smart person."

"No, about you were falling in love with me?"

"I said 'I think I'm falling in love with you'."

"What's the difference?"

"I don't know, but I'm not sure if I love you or not."

"Can't you love a friend?"

"I thought we were inseparable enemies?"

"Can't you love an enemy?"

"I don't know."


	22. Chapter 20

**Ch 20**

It had been a week since Pandora had last seen Reno. Reno had disappeared again with out a trace and his stuff was thrown out on the curb. Pandora and Rude collected as much of his stuff as they could but most of it was either damaged or stolen. Reno was most definitely…there are no words to describe what Reno was to her. She felt a little sad when Reno had disappeared. She thought that it was her fault for not expressing her feelings, even though she honestly didn't know if she really felt that way about him or not.

School would be coming to an end in a couple of more weeks; many of the students weren't graduating, most of them being the group of kids that always picked on Pandora, but she was graduating. Pandora wasn't graduating the top of her class, but she was content on knowing that she would have to deal with being harassed everyday anymore.

She didn't pay attention in class anymore because the classrooms were always filled with students partying and teachers partying along with them or ignoring them. Pandora was completely in a different world when she went to class. Basically she was a walking zombie. She just couldn't think anymore.

"Hey, Pandora," an all too familiar terrible voice called to her. It was the voice of the male who had raised a hand to her and had hired the three men to kill her that seemed so long ago now. "Pandora," he called again.

"What do you want," she sighed. "Nothing good ever comes from you talking to me."

"I just want to congratulate you on graduating."

"Wow you actually care. I'm quit shocked."

"Heh, you always seem to make me out to be the bad guy."

"You are a bad guy. To be honest I'm not at all shocked that you are not graduating."

"I bet not."

That was it. That would be the last conversation she would have with anyone from her school ever again. And Pandora was glad about that.

She walked into her apartment after school and lightly dropped her back pack down on the ground in front of the door and walked over to the living room area and dropped the mail on the couch and went to take a shower. That's what she needed. A nice cold shower to clear her cluttered mind.

Pandora lightly slammed her head against the shower door as she remembered the last part of the conversation she had with him. She couldn't get it out of her head of what she had said to him.

**Flash Back**

"Why do we have to be enemies," Reno asked looking at the night sky.

"I don't know," Pandora sighed. "I guess it just happens."

"Can't we just forget what happened in the past?"

Pandora thought a moment and couldn't remember why they were enemies in the first place. She couldn't remember anything about it at all. She thought that she remembered something about money, or what ever, but couldn't really remember.

"Yes," Pandora finally said. "I think we can forget about what had happened."

Reno smirked. "That's good," he said quietly.

There was silence between the two, Pandora's gaze was to the ground and Reno's gaze was to the sky. The only sound was random insects making their own sound. It was a comfortable silence, not an awkward one that Pandora had thought it would.

"So much for inseparable enemies," Reno murmured.

"What?" Pandora looked up at him as Reno got off the bench they were sitting on and stood in front of Pandora.

"I've got to get you home," he said ignoring her question and took her hand and pulled her up. "Don't worry. I'm not gunna let an accidental kiss happen between us again."

**End Flash Back**

"'Don't worry. I'm not gunna let an accidental kiss happen between us again,'" Pandora mimicked, tears streaming down her face with the shower water.

For some reason, that comment had hurt her now than it did then. She didn't know why it did, it just did. Her heart started to hurt, like having a heart attack; maybe she was dying of a broken heart or maybe she was just imagining the pain.

She shut the water off and grabbed the towel from next the rack and dried herself off. As she wiped the tears and water off her face, more tears trailed down replacing the lost trails. And again, Pandora would dry her face off and more tears fell down, and to be honest that pissed her off. She shouldn't be crying over some guy who left on his own will. Besides, it was Reno she was crying over not a guy she had a long relationship with.

"Damn it," Pandora cursed and wrapped the towel around her body and went to her room and got dressed.

When she walked out, she walked to her living room window and looked out at all the tiny little people below her. They were all the same; they had the same hair color if not close to it. Red. A lone red spot was in the middle of the crowed, standing in one spot.

"It couldn't be…"


	23. Chapter 21

**Ch 21**

Pandora ran out of the apartment building, frantically trying to get to the red spot, only to have her heart drop to her stomach. It wasn't him. It was just some guy in a red outfit, standing in front of her building like he was mocking her. She backed away from him slowly until her back hit the building wall and slid to the ground and sat there. Eventually, the man clad in red walked away (she thought that he had a smirk like he had accomplished in making her life more miserable) leaving her alone.

Thunder had sounded and rain started to fall. Her head lolled down to where she was facing the ground and tears started to mix with the rain. She didn't know how much more she could take her heart hurting anymore. Pandora starting to think how easy it would be just to get a heart transplant and then, hopefully, her feeling for the stupid red head would go away.

Pandora slowly got up from the ground and stood there a while, wiping the tears from her eyes. She slowly turned to go back into the apartment building, her yellowish-brown hair covering her eyes that were staring at the ground as she walked. She already knew where her apartment unit was, so there was no reason to look around…well there was one good reason. The girl bumped into a man and staggered backwards a little.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean …," she looked up and was cut off when the man turned around and revealed himself as Reno. That stupid red head

"Watch where you're goin' little girl," Reno said and stared at her, a smirk played on his lips.

For a while the two had a little staring contest, navy blue eyes meeting plain blue eyes. Lightning lit up the dim skies and thunder filled the silent void between the two; it started to rain lightly and the two continued to hold their places in the little contest. Finally Reno blinked and raised an eyebrow, noticing that Pandora had been crying.

"What are you staring at," Reno asked wiping a stray tear away from her face.

"Nothing worth while," she said and fell into his arms and let her tears flow.

Reno gave a sad smile and just held her close, petting her hair and tried to calm her down. He said soothing words, that Pandora thought were just words to keep her from crying anymore and he had helped her stop crying.

"You're not crying over me are you," Reno teased her a little.

"Shut up," Pandora said into his chest and hit him lightly.

The two made their way to Pandora's apartment and she made them some hot cocoa and the two sat next to each other and sipped their drinks silently. Neither made the attempt to speak, but both of them had a lot to say.

"Where were you this time," Pandora asked, finally breaking the silence.

"I can't tell you that," Reno said. Pandora heaved a sigh that was almost sad. "I can't tell you this time."

"Yea, yea, Turk business," Pandora said like it happened all the time.

"Yup."

There was silence between the two again. Then Reno smiled and looked at Pandora. She felt his eyes on her and looked at him.

"Go out with me," Reno said.

"What," Pandora asked with a raised eye brow.

"Go out with me."

"Where?"

"You're the stupidest smart person I know. I mean, will you date me?"

Pandora was slightly speechless. "Uh," was about all that she could manage to say.

"I wouldn't blame you if you said…"

"Yea," Pandora said cutting him off.

It was Reno's turn to be speechless. Pandora smirked a little and looked at the ground. Reno finally smiled and grabbed her hand and just held it. And again, it was silent. It seemed like there was nothing to be said, so the silence was very comfortable.

"I love you," Reno said.

"I love you too."

_To make this story end happily ever after, Reno ended up moving in with Pandora. If you all remember correctly, Reno was homeless (think of a little puppy; wouldn't you bring 'em into your home?; if you're allergic to dogs then think of a kitty), so Pandora gave him the extra bedroom. Yes that made him sad, but she explained to him about how babies came to existence and he agreed that it was for the best._

_They are still happily together and hopefully will still be together for a long time. I wish them both the best and I wish that they will really be fiancés in the future. _

Finishing the last sentence, a young woman closed her laptop and propped her feet up on the desk and leaned back in her chair and smirked.

"I wish the best for you Reno," she said and walked out of her office and towards the front door where someone was knocking.

When she opened the door she saw one of her close friends and coworker that she hadn't seen since the Shinra building had been blown up.

"Elena, we have a job to do," Tseng said.

"Let me get my coat," she said with a smile.


	24. Author's Note 3

To my readers,

Thank you for reading this story, and with a lot of confidence, I will be posting another story. I am extremely happy of how well this story went and how many people liked it and it just makes me feel happy.

I must apologize to you all because of how long it had taken me to get these last few chapters posted. I thought I had it all organized and planned but when it came to posting the chapters, sometimes they wouldn't be finished and I would rush a little to finish it. So I apologize for some of the late posting and I hope it hadn't been a big inconvenience for everyone.

In Chapter 17, I would like to thank Girl-who-sings-the-blues for giving me the idea of the giant penguin. It seemed really amusing when she had mentioned it that I had to use it.

I had received a review that was rude from Flame Rising and this is what they had to say:

_Good God. A fucking piece of shit from my ass could write better than this. How_

_old are you? Five? Six?_

_What the fuck is wrong with you that you think you can write a story people want_

_to read? The only people that like this crack-out piece of shit are other_

_inbreds like you._

_Please, do the rest of humanity a favor and never, ever write anything again._

_Just to make sure, maybe you should jump off a cliff._

_Got it?_

_Good._

_F/R_

I would like to thank them for their opinion, but I don't car about them (despite the fact that I had returned their reply).

Thank you all again for reading and I hope you all will enjoy my next story that I hope will be posted by next month.

Thank you again,

Tora-no-Ankoku


End file.
